Day three

Did I mention I'm exhausted? I went to sleep around 10pm last night, and woke up at 3. Couldn't go back to sleep, so I was up all night working on my argument. I felt refreshed when I woke up at 3, so I figured I'd be good to go for the day. well ...

In the morning, they played video depositions of my clients. Now let me say this: the case is about an LLC and whether the proper formalities were followed when the members / managers took certain actions, so at times, it's the most mind-numbingly boring stuff. Add to that the fact that the other side's lawyers are like Ben Stein sans the exciting personality, and you've got yourself one hell of a party! So when they took my guys' depositions, I had to sit through 3 full days of: "was there a meeting held to approve this action?" and "was there a notice sent out regarding the meeting of the members?"

Today, I had to sit through like 4 hours of video excerpts from those depositions in the morning. Even after a full night's sleep, that would be a disaster, so imagine how much I was loving life. At some point in the middle, I told the arbitrator I was willing to stipulate to a bunch of that stuff, so then he got pissed off, because he thought we (both parties) should have submitted stipulations before trial. So he yelled at us and told us to stipulate.

After all of that, they finally put their main client on the stand ... the guy who pulls all the strings and calls all the shots for the company. I had been looking forward to this cross, but I really think my brain had checked out after sitting through the depos in the morning, so I wasn't on my game. Can't say I was terrible, but I wasn't as sharp as I should have been. For example, at one point, he gave me a real nugget ... I mean HUGE! But instead of just dropping it and moving on, I asked another question about it, and that just muddled up his previous answer, so I had to ask another question. Before I knew what happened, I had given him the opportunity to fix his testimony and make himself look good. Not sure what the arbitrator thought, but although made a few good points I wasn't crazy about this cross. Clients were happy though.

Speaking of clients, after the hearing, I went over to his house to discuss the case. The good news: you step off the steps on his back-yard and onto the fairway of avenel (a championship golf course, for the uninformed among you). The bad news: I wanted to shoot myself when I was leaving there. A bunch of people meeting and talking about a case that they're all very opinionated about ... it was an absolute debacle!

Anyway, mid-week re-cap:

- I don't think they've proven much of anything, and I can't see how they could win their case. This guys' just to smart not to see through their garbage.

- At worst, we're even right now, which means that unless we screw up royally, they can't win their case. The only question remaining will be whether we can get punitives and fees.

- Arbitrator is very smart, so he's going to understand everything. this means (1) no need for drama and rhetoric (d'oh!), and (2) hopefully he won't buy the bs these guys are trying to feed him.

Tomorrow I start to put on witnesses.

Finally!